There are many devices, of which I am aware, for capturing and restraining animals and, in particular, farm animals and herd livestock. All such devices have as their aim to aid a person, such as a farmer or shepherd, to capture and restrain the animal without injuring the animal. A further objective is to provide increased restraint and to reduce the effort required to be exerted by the animal handler during restraint. Examples of such devices are exemplified by the following U.S. Patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor Date of Issue ______________________________________ 222,850 Wellman Dec. 23, 1879 338,606 Morley March 23, 1886 635,543 Herr Oct. 24, 1899 673,629 Thurmond May 7, 1901 956,932 Burch May 3, 1910 ______________________________________
Unfortunately, the devices of which I am aware suffer from at least one of several drawbacks that have limited their use. First, each of the devices captures and restrains the animal by capturing and holding either the leg or snout of the animal which can easily lead to injury of the animal when it struggles to get loose, especially since the animal is being held by a portion of the body that is easily subject to such injury as a result of such struggling. Second, none of these devices provide any sort of tranquilizing effect whatsoever that would minimize the struggling of the captive animal and, thus, would reduce both the possibility of injury to the animal, as well as the effort required to be exerted by the handler during restraining. Finally, these devices are all specialized and rather complicated and none are capable of being retrofit to existing restraint devices.
Accordingly, it can be seen that there remains a need for a simple and inexpensive device that can capture and restrain an animal by holding a portion of the animal's body that provides maximum control over the animal, thereby minimizing the possibility that the animal will struggle and concomitantly minimizing the possibility of injury to an animal captured thereby. There further remains a need for such a device that tranquilizes the restrained animal, thereby minimizing both the risk of injury to the animal and the effort required to restrain the animal.